


Gravity pulls you in

by FalseConfidence



Series: Love & other drugs [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy is still done with this century, Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Mutual Pining, Teasing, fuck and die, reverse sex pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:40:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26072032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalseConfidence/pseuds/FalseConfidence
Summary: Then, Andy says out of nowhere, “I’d put a thousand down that you can’t last that long.”Joe’s mouth drops in a comical fashion.“You realise that if we fail that bet then we’ll die.” Joe says. “Forever.---In which a bet is made, and Nicky's patience is tested in ways that he never thought possible.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Love & other drugs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889050
Comments: 52
Kudos: 451





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm already back on my pining bullshit because I sat down to watch the film again after posting the last fic and my brain went into overdrive. I had to split this into two chapters because otherwise it would have been just so damn long, at least this way I hope it looks better structured than the madhouse my brain spit out.
> 
> I think you can read this just fine as a standalone, mainly the concept is that Joe and Nicky get hit with a drug that will kill them if they get off. Like that's it, literally the whole point :)

Andy is, as always, the smartest of them all.

So it shouldn’t surprise Nicky, as he wanders into their safe house pulling a dazed Joe along with him, that she heads straight to the side cabinet, unearths an old bottle of whiskey, swirls it around before taking a liberal drain and then dumping three glasses onto the living room table.

Nile vanishes into the kitchen as they’ve all learnt that she has a habit of eating bowls of cereal sat criss-cross atop the counter, headphones on, listening to ASMR videos after a particularly challenging mission.

Which, in a way, Nicky supposes this would qualify as one.

“At least it’s a novelty.” Andy says.

“Not a particularly pleasant one.” Nicky gripes.

“You have to admit that it’s a little funny.”

It isn’t. He’s highly unamused.

Fighting the encroaching ennui of an eternal life is one of the greatest battles Nicky has discovered in his nine-hundred or so years. They all have their own techniques that help them float between jobs, places of comfort that soothe their souls. Nicky has been particularly fond of the Camargue this last century, can vividly recall the first time he stood deep in the marshy plains, head tilted to watch the flamingos taking flight, Joe’s sharp inhalation when he’d turned to kissed him in the dying light.

 _That_ is why this is as funny as getting keelhauled.

All of Nicky’s _moments_ , his methods to cope with the long life they’ve been granted, revolve and spiral around his Yusef.

Therefore, this is an abomination to him.

However, as he’s wont to do, Joe will take his reassurances only when Nicky has grasped his unruly emotions and wrangled them into submission. He’s looking at Nicky now, has a hand at his shoulder, thumb stroking over his shirt in concentric circles around the knot of muscle that’s formed there, heals, then forms once more. Presses a terribly drawn out kiss to his cheek and Nicky’s chest heaves for a breath at the scrape of stubble as his love pulls back, adoration caught between the curve of his lips.

“We shall be fine?” Joe says, possibly as a question that’s dependant on Nicky’s reaction.

Nicky smiles in answer and pulls the hand from his back and fixes it between both of his, reorients his heart by the steady tick of Joe’s pulse as he brushes over the soft skin of his inner wrist.

Andy watches them solemnly.

“We shall.” Nicky says and feels himself comfortably slipping back into composure. “It shan’t be an issue.”

“True, I have gone many a night without the feel of you beloved, it will be a great loss, but we will endure together.” Joe promises.

Nicky is rather in love with a fool. He consoles himself with touching his lips to the back of Joe’s hand.

Then, Andy says out of nowhere, “I’d put a thousand down that you can’t last that long.”

Joe’s mouth drops in a comical fashion.

“You realise that if we fail that bet then we’ll die.” Joe says. “Forever.

Andy doesn’t blink. “Yes.”

“Huh.” Joe tries to look offended.

“I’ll put a thousand down that I can last longest.” Nicky says, catching on to her game.

Now Joe does look offended. “Where’s the faith, Nicky?”

“Not with you." Andy grins, always ready for a solid bet. “Are you backing yourself?”

“Apparently so.” Joe crosses his arms and looks to the closed kitchen door. “Does the kid get a bid?”

“No!” Nicky says and Andy barks.

“I want to make one thing clear.” Andy crosses her arms. “When you crack, I want it to be nowhere near Nile, she doesn’t need traumatising.”

“What do you take me for?” Joe mutters.

“A depraved, hedonistic demon intent on corrupting the youth of today.” Andy deadpans.

“You did read to the end.” Joe beams.

Nicky remains quiet, leaves them to bicker over it because he refuses to encourage Joe’s joyful perusal of a manifesto that deserves little more purpose than as an accompaniment to kindling. He’s also waiting to see the moment Joe realises that their boss has read them like open books and implemented the perfect distraction to lighten the mood whenever either of them stumble in the immediate future.

And… _There._

“You’re good, boss.” Joe admits.

Andy salutes them over the shoulder as she goes to find more alcohol.

It’s quite relieving to know that despite the ground moving from incremental shifts over the Millennia to practically heaving them off of their feet in the last year, that Andy is still the sharpest, brightest object in the room.

\---

“I would like to burn… no, stake… no, hang him from the largest tree in all the land until he stops breathing.”

“That’s the definition of hanging, love.” Nicky says, although he’s feeling a little partial to the idea of a hanging himself.

Joe pauses in the middle of brushing his teeth and points his toothbrush in Nicky’s direction. “Don’t correct me Nicky, he deserves all of it and more.”

This tirade against Booker has been going on for the entirety of their evening routine as Nicky slips into the soft, grey sweatpants he found in the bottom drawer of the dresser, tugs a shirt over his still wet hair and climbs into bed knowing that Joe will eventually tire of calling Booker a whoreson in every tongue that they’ve ever learnt.

“Centre yourself and calm yourself, Joe.”

Nicky hears a snort.

“I think not.”

“That is my heart you’re wearing out, I shan’t forgive you for putting it under undue strain.”

“I’ll show you undue strain.” Joe blusters, and Nicky hears the tap stop running before his love’s ire finally seems to peter out like the breaking of a storm.

Joe slides under the sheets and immediately anchors himself at Nicky’s back, arm slung over his waist until they’re fused together. He seems intent after a few seconds to slowly stroke over Nicky’s side, this tactile lover of his unable to resist a hand meandering along the hem of his shirt before rucking it up, fingers splaying across his belly, tracing upwards with the faintest impression of force over his chest.

“Joe.” He murmurs a warning.

The problem is that his husband has deftly nimble fingers when it comes to mapping out his body, calming and yet able to spark that desperate feeling of _want_.

It never has been able to be tempered, that all-encompassing _need_ that has struck Nicky like a wayward arrow when he least expects it. Different to the usual fizzing and frothing tug in his gut he burns with whenever Joe does something audacious to capture his attention.

Usually breathing does the trick.

Nicky is a remarkably simple man.

No, this need is a powerful entity, it ensnares his lungs and expels all of the wind out of them with a shattering force, sends droplets of ice down his searing spine as he curls like a folded page in a treasured book, holding onto each memory with greedy fingers.

The last he can remember with startling clarity is fifty years or so back while they were traversing the Vosges range, Joe’s eyes shining as he looked up and lost himself in the galaxy stretching out in a tapestry of stars above him, and Nicky watched him with oxygen crystallising in his throat with every second his lovers attention was diverted, even if in awe of the universe itself.

“I did not endure the eighties to lose you now.” Nicky says firmly, even as he’s turning in Joe’s arms.

Joe doesn’t ask him to clarify, most of their collective eighties have been lacklustre at best, and in the literal sense, hanging at their worst.

Nicky brings their faces level, tips his forehead against his lovers until their lips are a hairsbreadth apart and basks in the quiet, mischievous laugh he _feels_ to the very core of his being in a shaky exhalation. Then, because it has been established that Nicky can be a hypocrite, his fingers come up to span the warm hollow of Joe’s neck, under the curve of his jaw, tipping at the same time he angles and kisses his husband with a content sigh.

The first brush of lips draws him back to the blood-soaked exhilaration of that first time, where it was frantic and fraught with tension, and now it’s unhurried and lacking no less in passion. He can’t resist keeping his eyes open, if only to savour the unguarded, serene look in Joe’s eyes, the pleasure he hums against Nicky’s lips.

“Close your eyes and go to sleep, love.” He insists in a lull between breaths, and Joe obeys with a final kiss to the column of Nicky’s throat.

Irritatingly easy, actually, considering the fact that Nicky’s heart is racing like a hummingbird trapped behind his rib-cage.

In theory this whole _thing_ should be _easy_.

Nicky is an incredibly old man, he’s aware of this, knows that he’s technically an eternity of creaking bones and worn out skin coated in a youthful varnish. He’s mastered self-control in nearly all aspects of his life, left marks across time, pressed the whorls of his fingertips onto the surface of the world and never had the dignity to leave that as his lasting impression.

He’s incredibly old and he’s also desperately in love, and the object of his affections, the light of his life, is stretched out next to him, face resting against his collarbone and Nicky’s now been absently reflecting and playing with the curls by his forehead for the last thirty minutes and he’s unbelievably, unbearably hard.

“You’re in trouble, my heart.”

Joe’s sly grin is imprinted into his flesh and Nicky knows without looking that there’s branches created from centuries of laughter and light radiating out from his eyes, and Nicky is indeed, fucked.

\---

If there is one thing that time has done right, then it’s horse rearing, Nicky thinks as he helps Nile tack up, reminds her for the fourth time that unless she fancies swinging under the mare’s broad belly, that she might wish to tighten the girth.

“I will laugh, and I will not come to rescue you.” He warns her and finds the amused quirk of her mouth rather pleasant as she bounces twice on the ground and then clambers aboard her patient steed, aptly called Honey.

“You would.” Nile says assuredly as Nicky mounts.

They’re… procrastinating. That’s the most apt term to describe it. They’re restricted at the moment, Andy sat on the phone with Copley for a frankly astonishing time considering he’s seen her grow bored in the middle of creating a cup of tea, the teabag still in the mug as she ambles off. Now don’t mistake Nicky, he too would happily abandon such an inferior beverage, but the diligence she pays the conversation with their new… ‘I.T. Guy’ as Nile has taken to calling him, is unprecedented.

“We’ve got to lay low for a while.” Andy explains after. “The Divine have sent out a threat- “

“The _what_?” Nile coughs.

Andy pulls the face of someone that knows they are about to be met with an infinite well of mocking. “The Divine, it’s what the terrorist cell are calling themselves.”

“The Divine?” Joe asks.

“Yes.” Andy sighs.

"Seriously?" Nile starts to smile.

" _Yes_."

Andy waits.

Stares around at them until the stretch of silence surpasses uncomfortable and after a further pregnant pause where she eyes each of them with a look that has made kings drop to their knees in supplication, continues, “So what’s happening-”

Joe and Nile roar with laughter.

( _Later,_ after Nicky explains for the _thousandth_ time that he is not Joe’s keeper and therefore can do nothing about his love howling with joy until there’s tears running from his eyes at _'t_ _hey sound like a nineties pop band'_ , while Nile braces a hand against Joe’s arm to keep herself upright as she hiccups around another peal of laughter to _'which nineties?'_ , Andy finally gives up and brandishes them all idiots).

Nile and Joe, as a pair, are fast becoming a nightmare together, and Nicky can appreciate why they’re being separated, takes the opportunity to continue his lessons with the girl he’s so quickly become endeared to.

Nile takes to the art of horsemanship with the same enthusiasm he’s seen her dedicate to everything in her new life. Without limit and full of a youthful vigour. She’s good as well, not born in the saddle, riding as soon as she’s out of swaddling like Andy or Joe, but she’s grasped the basic concepts soon enough. Gentle with her hands, light in the seat as they turn out of the small yard and trot down a carefully maintained track.

“For a long time this was the closest you could get to a birds flight whilst remaining grounded.” He scratches the chestnut neck of the fizzing thoroughbred he’s sitting atop, feels the powerful bunch and coil of muscles as Rusalka strains against his casual hold on the bit.

He has a feeling she’s going to earn her name.

“And now we can soar a thousand times faster than any bird of prey.”

Nicky clicks his tongue in distaste, “Encased in a shell of metal and recycled air. Never let Andy hear you say that.”

Nile’s lips turn up at the corners. “At least a plane won’t buck you out of your seat.”

“That’s true.” Nicky concedes. “Though I’ve not fallen from a horse in a long time Nile.”

She watches as his mare tosses it head as if in acceptance of a challenge. “Do you want to put money on that?”

And the other reason they came out today vaults over the hastily applied wall he constructed in his mind and stomps, much like his mare, for attention. His attempts to expand Nile’s technique, to give himself an admirable excuse to leave the others for a few hours comes crashing down. Everything feels incredibly tight all of a sudden, his skin turning first hot, then pulling taut and foolishly he thinks about how Joe smells of all things. Like the sun-baked vineyards in Alsace, the sea-salt tinge of a coastal fog near dawn, topped with a cardamom glaze.

It takes a series of particularly foul corkscrew bucks for him to gather everything back and throw it behind the wall once more, Rusalka crabbing and side stepping until he loosens his hands, sits lax and heavy in the saddle while she makes her complaint heard.

“Easy now,” he sings, rolls the words off of his tongue like they’re coated with molasses, “pretty girl, _easy_.”

“What the hell was that?” Nile stares at him wide-eyed, patting Honey and seeming as if in the middle of a grateful prayer that she isn’t in his shoes.

“ _That_ is what happens when you don’t pay attention.” Nicky berates himself mostly, as Rusalka continues to dance in place as they leave a small copse of trees and come out into a long stretch of open fields. “Oh, shit.”

Nile laughs, rises in her seat in preparation. “Ready to fly hotshot?”

Rusalka whinnies shrilly, eyes the expanse in front of her with a vehemence that has Nicky rolling his eyes before giving up as they break out into fast, bouncy canter. He keeps the mare in check as he waits for Nile to indicate she’s ready, and when she nods he pushes his hands up Rusalka’s neck, settles high over her withers so he can see where he’s going and turns her loose.

\---

They’re in the Maldives, supposedly laying low, when Joe starts to get truly restless.

“What,” Nile spins in a circle to take it all in, “the hell is this?”

The canvases are piled every which way, watercolours and charcoal, acrylics and oil based, encaustic and gouache, Nicky can even spot a few pastel pieces balanced on the decking outside.

“Joe is clearing out his studio.” He explains as he drops their shopping down on the one free space in the kitchen, a little spot by the stove.

“Why?”

“So I can unleash the full potential of my vision.” Joe comes through, kisses Nicky on the cheek, rummages through their bags, finds the bottle of Cachaça Agacana, and then swivels on his heel and stalks back into his studio.

“That was strange.”

Because he truly cares for Nile, has come to enjoy her company in a manner that makes him feel that he would carve out time in his day for her even if they were not bound by fate, Nicky decides to give her a warning. “Whatever you do Nile, don’t go in there. Ever.”

“And, I ask this with great trepidation, why?”

Nicky thinks of the beauty of Joe’s art, the crease in his brow when he concentrates, eyes narrowing the closer he gets to the finish, and then the end product. The likes of which Nicky has vehemently denied his love from revealing over the years. “Anything in there is not fit for public consumption.”

The precise moment Nile works it out is timed beautifully to coincide with Andy bursting into laughter as she walks through the front door.

“At least he’s keeping his hands busy for now.” She says gleefully.

“I can hear you!” Joe shouts indignantly.

\---

It strays into the ridiculous at times.

Nicky is fast learning that it’s Nile that starts trouble, a lot of the time without intending to, which usually makes it that much better.

Plus Andy can’t threaten to pop his head clean off of his shoulders if Nile is the one encouraging the debauchery.

He hopes.

“How do you manage to drink all of that?” Nile stares at him suspiciously as she whisks what will eventually make an omelette in a Pyrex bowl.

Nicky puts down the jug of pineapple juice. “I’m thirsty.” He thinks that’s a simple answer to the easiest question she’s levelled at him so far. Vastly preferable to trying to debate the semantics of whether he, Joe and Andy are tax evading ‘assholes’ or simply charitable Samaritans with the wealth they’ve amassed and dispersed in repetitive cycles over their lives.

He doesn’t want to touch that one again with a ten-foot barge pole for a _long_ time.

“Yeah, but how do you drink so much? That’s not natural.”

Nicky shrugs, doesn’t feel the need to dredge up the necessary details to adequately describe the unique experience of dehydration, sees Joe and Andy lost for a moment in their own memories.

“If I didn’t know any better I would have thought that you were preparing yourself.” She snickers as the little pat of butter she places in the pan starts to melt.

“What?” Andy asks before Nicky can voice his confusion.

Nile lifts her head and turns to see that they’re all staring at her. “Seriously? I thought you guys knew everything.” She tips the bowls contents into the pan and Nicky’s fingers itch to correct when he knows it won’t be the perfect consistency between light and fluffy that she deserves.

“What is so special about pineapple juice?” Nicky asks, eyes the nearly empty jug cautiously now.

“Well, it’s supposed to change… y’know… the taste of things.” She ducks her head whether to hide her cringing or laughter, Nicky does not now. “I mean they haven’t proven it with a study, but y’know, it’s one of those things that everyone _knows_ is true.”

Joe works it out and stares at her, shocked. “How on earth did you learn that?”

Nile shrugs, and she’s definitely suppressing a grin. “This kid in my class at college tried it on a lot, and one of the things he’d do was drink the stuff all the damn time to try and convince me it was worth it.”

“Bastard,” Joe spits out in disgust, reaches out to pat her arm reassuringly.

Doubtful though it is that she intended for it to have this effect, it’s heartening to see the genuine adoration exchanged between the pair.

“If anyone ever tries to give you pineapple juice, you tell me and I’ll impale them.” Joe says seriously.

Really, he’s asking for it, Nicky decides as Nile turns towards him and takes the carton from his extended hand.

“My heart, why would you do this to me.” Joe shakes his head in faux despair.

“I feel very corrupted.” Nile promises with a wink. “Sorry Joe.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Andy says. “He’s only sour because he can’t impale Nicky in the manner he’d prefer.”

It’s hard to tell which is more enjoyable to witness, Andy’s Cheshire cat smile, Joe’s fervent declaration of intent as he vows to smite The Divine with all of his righteous fury for this curse, or Nile’s _frankly_ impressive arch of juice that flies across the kitchen as she splutters and chokes.

\---

“You foolish, _foolish_ man. What on-”

“In my defence, I did not expect-”

“- _earth_ , did you think would happen?”

“-them to be quite so talented at knot work.”

Nicky stares in disbelief at the other half of his soul and tries to remember the last time he’s been this taken aback by such a flagrant disregard for safety.

They’d been in the middle of a minor reconnaissance mission. To define as _minor_ because they shouldn’t have made contact. _S_ _weep and do a general check of the area, absolutely no contact._ Andy had been pointedly specific about it, reiterated several times and Nicky would like it to be known that he is not the one that got them into this mess.

Admittedly it would have been him, if he’d seen the children lining up in a single file format to walk into the shipping containers first, and again, it would have been him providing the distraction for his husband to sneak the children to the safety of Copley’s hastily scrambled team if Joe hadn’t near lain himself prostrate at the mercenaries feet.

Joe seems relatively unharmed aside from the crust of blood in a few of his curls, a patch of it in his beard and if Nicky can recall it from when he’d swept in, a faint ring of blue-black-purple around his left eye which has long since healed. It seems that the primary goal was to restrain and then beat the answers out of him, a plan they would have enacted if Nicky hadn’t cut through them like they were no more than stalks of wheat beneath his scythe.

“Nicolo, my love, would you mind releasing me.” Joe says.

It’s a reasonable request, Nicky thinks, when one is trussed up and swinging from one’s ankles from a meat hook embedded in the metal ceiling of the container.

“Though I do enjoy this view of you.” Joe tells his belt.

Nicky, who’s in the middle of examining the diabolical, hap-hazard assortment of knots holding his love in place, ends up sighing exasperatedly.

“Do you want me to try and saw through the ropes? Or attempt to untie you?”

“I would rather you knot cut me.” Joe wriggles his fingers, hands bound above his head, and grins. “Knot? Do you get it, my heart?”

Nicky is in _love_ with this idiot. He ends up dragging a blade through the rope attached to the hook and lowering Joe to the ground on his front before he makes a start on the complicated patchwork in front of him, kneeling over his husband’s thighs to achieve a better angle.

“Are you angry?” Joe asks quietly when Nicky successfully releases the first knot on his middle.

Nicky lets his hand flit across the lower stretch of Joe’s back he’s freed in an idle exploration for a moment as he _hums_ and _hahs_ over the task at hand. Allows his mind to quiet, declines to examine the precise geometric shape of his dread, the cavernous depth of his fear each time they get separated like this. It’s a poor choice of coping mechanics, to only map out the contours of his relief when he finds Joe, has him safe and alive in his hands.

“You’re upset with me.” Joe confirms to himself, and Nicky tries to quell the pounding of his blood at the crestfallen expression he sees when he pulls his attention up.

“I am not upset with you.” He says, works his hand under the braided rope at the top of Joe’s calves and lets slip a particularly unpleasant curse as he works on the knot secured there. He isn’t… upset about it. It’s more that he’s filled with a budding desperation to release Joe, untangle him from this place and drag him back to their hotel room where they should be now, planning another days reconnaissance. He wants to place these brutal, blood drenched hands of his around Joe’s waist and crush himself under his heart’s unceasing adoration until he feels grounded once more.

It has been a very long time since Nicky felt adrift in the world without an anchor to pin him down.

There’s an opportunity to lighten the mood, as much as one is able to when there’s a cooling body not five feet from them, and Nicky is disappointed that he can’t muster the verve to tease as his knuckles rub against Joe’s inner thigh, fingers tracing along the tender skin of his forearms when he wrenches the last of the rope away.

Joe places sword-callused palms against his neck, strokes along the line of Nicky’s jaw slowly, tips their heads together and Nicky breathes him in, feels a place in his core light up from his love’s attention and he settles back into his skin with short, quick inhalations until he’s present once more.

\---

The steak knife slamming into the wood hard enough it pierces straight through three inches of two-hundred-year-old oak, just shy of the soft, tender web of flesh between his pointer and thumb shocks Nicky enough to have him withdraw his foot from the in-seam of Joe’s jeans and retreat to slowly dragging along the tops of his thighs instead.

“Can I help you?” He asks politely.

“If you play footsie under the table while I’m in the room again I’ll make sure you regret it.” Andy scowls.

“Really? What are you going to do, Andy?”

Apparently, there’s a limit to his patience.

It’s six weeks.

Nicky makes it six weeks before he’s keyed up enough to taunt a goddess into smiting him.

He’s been quartered by a drunken bigot with a rusty blade before. This is nothing.

Andy reads all of that with a barely concealed pleasure at his suffering. “I’ll sneak in and shave Joe’s beard while he’s sleeping.”

None of them point out that nobody has reached a slumbering Joe in many a century without having to step over Nicky’s steaming corpse first.

“Is that all?” Joe says, relaxes in his chair. “I can live with that.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Andy raises a bottle of Glenfiddich to her lips and drains more than a human should probably consume if they like having a liver that functions correctly. “But can Nicky?”

“Of course he can.” Joe says smugly.

“Nicky?”

Nicky looks at Joe, thinks of the scratch of that beard against his neck as he writhes under his lovers touch, the texture beneath the sensitive pads of his fingertips as he hooks Joe in for a kiss, how it feels when Joe licks a path down his stomach, the laughter it coaxes out of him when he drags his lips over Nicky’s side.

“Fine.” He yields.

\---

Despite popular belief, Nicky does not like fighting with Joe.

He will spar with him, traverse the ground with agility and speed, create a dance only possible when there’s an intimate knowledge held between two partners of their tendencies in motion, Joe knows how Nicky holds his weight in a fight, just like Nicky can translate the many permutations of the predatory glint Joe gets in his eyes.

The _problem_ is that he does not like to reminisce on the last time they crossed swords and came at one another with _intent_.

Joe is the custodian of not only his heart, but all of the tiny fragments of Nicky, the pieces he fears he might have lost through the centuries if not that Joe lovingly trailed behind him, picking them up and carefully placing them in his pocket for the time when Nicky needs them back.

Andy, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely.

He doesn’t know why it takes her dragging him outside one morning, while the sun is engorged and heavy in the sky, for Nicky to think of restarting their training, even when they gather an audience of two near immediately.

“You’re getting distracted.” Andy says as she steps in and under his reach and almost drags her xiphos across his midsection before he can dive back. “Get your shit together Nicky.”

 _Wiser sentiments have never been uttered_. He imbues the words with as much sarcasm as he dares when they’re in his head, and tries to rightly stab her in the gut.

It’s a cheap, lazy shot, and Andy looks outraged at his audacity to do anything less than come at her with every intention of landing the kill shot.

In return she advances, twirling the xiphos fluidly between hands and stops restraining herself.

Disappointingly she disarms him near immediately, a feat that might have concluded in a victory, but Nicky is well aware that this doesn’t end until there’s a ‘death’ blow or one of them bleeds. It’ll most likely be the latter.

Nicky pulls back, _hears_ Joe’s murmurings as he watches them spar, his affections and encouragement, like it’s etched into Nicky’s marrow, hieroglyphic patterns carved into his bones, and he’s fucking caught up in the feel of his love’s eyes on him that he almost loses his arm when Andy pushes her advantage at the first sign of weakness.

“Surely it’s not that bad?”

“Of course, it is.” He grits out and tries to find an opening.

“It’s only been a few weeks.” Andy inflects the words with intentional antagonism, and does this neat trick where she slips her sword from one hand to the other before using the now free one to grip Nicky’s forearm and wrench it down and backwards. “You’re both old enough to be better than this.”

He drops into the motion and breaks free before she can twist fully and dislocate his shoulder, hooks a foot around her ankle and pulls, not to have her fall like she’s expecting, but to use the space where she jumps to ram his elbow into the soft underside of her stomach and she drops her xiphos in surprise. “Celibacy does not become Joe. He becomes dreadfully impatient.”

“ _Hey!_ ”

Andy laughs at the pain, delights in its new and shiny packaging and unleashes a flurry of punches that Nicky’s hard-pressed to avoid, takes a few to the gut before he can retreat away from her. “And it has been seven weeks, four days-”

“-and sixteen hours.” Joe shouts helpfully.

“-and sixteen hours.” Nicky confirms, avoids pointing out that he may be keeping tally of the minutes as well.

Andy’s caught between a laugh and a gasp, back arching like a fish-hook is embedded deep in its crevices when Nicky, not believing it’ll connect, lands a direct blow to her soft, tender, underbelly that she curls forward to protect. He follows her down on instinct, tries to ignore the way his throat goes raspy and breathless in the face of her mortality, horror spreading through the electric line of his spine and tethering him to Joe and Nile where their fear soaks into him.

Andy does not yield. Not unless she’s kneeling before death, and they’ve all yet come to accept that will eventually happen, that they finally have a time-frame to plot out. But not yet.

_I’m not ready for this to happen._

He’s got a clear hand hovering over her throat in favour of real contact but the final hit is clear, and Nicky’s entire worldview is about to shift at the idea that he’s defeated Andy with such ease when he feels a cold line press into his abdominal, blood beading to the surface, the trajectory clear when he can recall so vividly how it feels to have a blade run through him.

“You were scaring me there for a moment, boss.” He falls back onto his knees and fails to hide the relief tainting his words.

Andy pulls her blade away, tosses it to the side when it’s clear he’s tapped out and grins wolfishly up at him.

“That was close.” He hears Nile say from the side of their makeshift ring.

“No, it wasn’t.” Nicky calls out to her and hears Joe chuckle.

“Quickfire lesson Nile, when did Nicky lose? Where was his mistake?” Andy sits up, elbows propped behind her, a picture of repose where Nicky’s still panting.

Nile’s nose scrunches as she thinks. “When Nicky thought that she’d dropped the knife accidentally, and instead you were placing it where you needed it?”

“Precisely, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to appear weak. Nicky withheld towards the end out of a newly developed guilt complex he has over my mortality. That could have cost him a life.”

Feeling chastened when the truth is said outright, Nicky locks his arm and holds it in place as he begins his cool down, turns with the motion and spots Nile pulling out a crisp twenty and placing it in Joe’s outstretched hand. “You bet against me, my love?”

Joe doesn’t attempt to look ashamed, sidling towards him. “I would place you above all of the humans on this planet, my heart.”

“But not Andy.”

“No. Andy is a demon.”

_Fair._

“Thank you.” Andy bows, straightens and then smirks. “Don’t worry about it kid, I’ll treat you to dinner tonight. I have a feeling I’ll be coming into some money soon.”

Nicky, who’s in the middle of letting Joe fuss over the non-existent wound, waits until Andy leads a confused Nile back towards the house before he curses virulently.

\---

“Try to think calm, soothing thoughts.” Joe’s thumbs spread over the swathe of his back, comes to rest in the notches of his spine before pressing firm circles out across the recently healed muscle. The sunlight streaming through the shutters casts a bizarre pattern of golden stripes and shadows across his love as Joe satisfies his latest post-death rush with running shaking hands across every inch of Nicky’s skin he can expose.

Given their circumstances, Nicky is going to have to object at some point, but for now he closes his eyes, mouth parting, and sinks into the intimacy with a groan, allows everything around them to temporarily fade into the background, accepts the respite he needs in the gentle scratch of Joe’s beard over one tensely drawn shoulder.

“It’s impossible to be calm while you touch me, love.” Nicky admits, shifts restlessly back against the hard line he can feel pressing into him that Joe valiantly is trying to ignore.

“You shouldn’t have such impure desires whilst I try to comfort you.” Joe tsks, chuckles against the nape of his neck, the hair moving as he huffs out a frustrated noise. “Would you be upset if I threatened Copley?”

“If it hurried him along then I’d give you anything.”

“That’s not very wise.”

“Anything, Yusef.” Nicky vows.

Joe strokes reassuringly through his hair and Nicky’s mind drifts a little. “We should go to Malta.”

And he’s bought straight back to the precipice of something that has sweat lick down the liquid heat in his belly. Says, “Don’t mention Malta,” then realises he’s effectively raised a crimson flag to a bull and he can feel them teeter on the edge as he tries to resist the urge to grind against the sheets to relieve some of the blessed fucking pressure on his dick.

“Do not, whatever you do Nicolo, think of Malta.” Joe kisses along the curve of his neck with a wicked grin. “Do not think of our lovely little apartment, with the balcony where we used to sun ourselves when it was too hot that all I could do was strip your cock while you promised me the world much like you have now, how good it felt to have you lax and sweet rocking in my lap before we fell into bed-”

Nicky, for his part, almost bucks him off of this bed as the words spoken in his husbands sonorous voice reverberates through his bones, turns his blood to gold as he catches dark eyes that slide over him as if Joe’s drunk on the very sight of his flushed face.

“You have no honour Yusef.” He groans and tries not to think of what a shockingly obvious tactic it is, the possibly purest of memories from Malta, and how completely it’s working, how it has a fire licking up his burdened spine. “I might consider your affection for me tainted if you’re that willing to kill me.”

For a fraction of a second, he sees hesitancy flash across Joe’s features, a pause where he holds his breath because they both know that Joe can stagger him by simply existing in his field of view, let alone when he opens his blasted mouth.

He waits quietly for Nicky’s reaction to guide him.

Nicky has a reaction for him.

It’s to roll, bring a leg around Joe’s waist and flip him onto his back, wrists pressed into the bed-sheets and then lean in to bite the cord of his neck, and drop his voice several octaves as he brushes his lips over Joe’s ear.

“Do not think of Budapest, my love, of Thessaly, of all of the times you’ve been too impatient to wait to find shelter and I’ve had to hold you down and take you apart while you beg until you're hoarse and broken, and most of all, light of my life, don’t think about how _good_ it’s going to feel when we’re free of this curse and I can ruin you again, and again, and _again_.”

Joe pants, pupils blown wide, tongue darting out to wet his lips and Nicky leans back on his haunches with a smug grin, awaits the curses and filth.

“You are beautiful, Nicolo.”

\---

Nicky, after a fraught and sleepless night, thinks of the Amṛtasiddhi near dawn, tries to recall the last time he’d read the text and decides it doesn’t matter as he moves through asana's and mudra as it if were mere weeks since he’d last practiced and not a frankly shameful century.

Joe, quite rightly, would call him a peacock as he feels Nile’s fascination, hears his love’s choked inhalation as he takes the weight of his body back on his shoulders in Viparita Karani and thinks that all may be right with the world as long as Joe continues to watch him like he’s the centre of his.


	2. Chapter 2

“If you don’t stop waving that in my face, I swear that you’ll not see another day.”

“Promises, promises.”

Nile isn’t deterred, and Nicky has to admire the sheer bravery, and partial stupidity, as she doggedly chases Andy around Nicky’s blanket, a tube of factor fifty in her hands and it would be funny if they weren’t hoofing up sand over his book.

“I mean it Nile, cut it the fuck out.”

“You’re not going to die this early because you’re too cool for sunblock Andy.”

It’s been going on for the last thirty minutes and Nicky has so far managed to avoid having to give an opinion on the matter. The sun is particularly aggressive today, he thinks as he rolls onto his back and gives up on the book after attempting to read the same page a dozen or so times now. There’s a light breeze that takes the edge off and it’s such a docile, genteel way to spend the day, he can’t say he put up much – read: none – of an argument when Nile declared that it’s a ‘beach’ day. As if they haven’t been living by the beach for the better part of a month now, but again, Nicky’s not one to argue.

“You’re not forcing that shit on Nicky, and he’s paler than I am _with_ sunburn.” Andy takes point by his feet, stretches her own and lowers herself into her stance. "I've seen him die from the sun."

"We were in the middle of the Karakum and our water canteens had been empty for days." Nicky feels the need to point out.

"You still died!"

"As did you, before Joe and I, might I add." Then when it only gains him a flash of white teeth bared menacingly Nicky adds, “She’ll flip you into the sea if you keep this up, Nile” He peers over his shades as Nile’s brow furrows, undeterred by his attempt at a warning.

“I bet Nicky would wear it without a single complaint if it meant that he wouldn’t end up looking like a battered leather couch before his body turned forty!”

“Like he’d care.”

“Excuse me?” Nicky lifts his head up.

Andy cocks a brow at him. “Tell me that you give a shit what you look like outside of what makes Joe happy?”

He lets his head thump back down and tries to convey an apologetic look up at Nile’s glowering face. “Sorry, I’m out.”

“If,” Nile grits out, “I slather half of this tube on Nicky will you shut up and put the fucking lotion on?”

Which is why Nicky finds himself sticky and slick and not in the good fucking way, sand seemingly ingrained in every crevice of his body all so Andromache of Scythia can sit primly at the edge of his blanket, nose upturned at the indignity of daring to avoid skin cancer.

“She’s doing alright, isn’t she.” Nicky says as he scratches his chin and regrets it when the gritty particles transfer into the scruff he’s grown over the last few weeks and not bothered to maintain to their usual standards.

Andy, although still reminding him of a spitting house cat, joins him in watching with a warmth sloshing about in his belly as Nile wades through the water. There’s something about this location, the seclusion, the villa possibly one of the most expensive safe-houses that Nicky has ever known Andy to buy, and he wonders if partially the reason they’re here is to watch Nile’s unfiltered joy at the pleasure of simply sifting her toes through the wet sand.

“Better than I think any of us have done, all things considered.” Andy admits, and there’s a small flush that’s not from her earlier battle with preventative skin treatments, but something about this place seems to have a restorative calm about it. “Though we haven’t taken her to that safe-house near Verkhoyansk in the middle of winter yet so maybe we’ll see her crack.”

The way she says it answer herself, and Nicky is in agreement. In a remarkably short time Nile has become embedded in their lives, and he’s hard-pressed to think of the last time that they were this strong as a unit.

Asides from Booker,

And Quynh.

But, they’re outside of his sphere of influence, and so he instead focuses on Nile’s delight as she spins around to face them, giddy, arms thrown out like a young ballerina.

“You guys need to come in.”

“No.” Andy intones.

“Come on.”

“And again, because you seem to have developed hearing issues, no.”

Nile looks to Nicky. He looks at Andy.

She scowls right back. “It’s not going to happen.”

“Are you sure about that?” Nicky asks innocently.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

No. He wouldn’t. Not a fucking chance.

However…

“Joe, my love.” He calls.

Joe looks up from where he’s sketching from the balcony, another rendition of Nicky’s back he suspects. Most likely without the added layer of sand and a whole lot more flattering than he’s ever thought of himself looking.

“Andy won’t go in the water.”

Joe puts his sketch pad and charcoal down on the table next to him, rolls his shoulders back in a gentle stretch, flexes his neck.

"Don't you fucking dare." Andy hisses.

Nile gapes, pauses in her wading. “He’s not going to…”

Nicky props himself up on his elbows, and takes in the very real sight of his husband dashing across the sand and lifting their squawking boss up around the thighs, _Nicky, you bastard_ , before promptly lugging her into the sea.

“You’ll learn,” he tells Nile later, while they watch the pair challenging one another in a series of aquatic feats, “that Joe is the only one Andy will let touch her so freely.”

“She’s lets everyone touch her.”

“Not like Joe.”

“Why only him?”

It’s quite a hard one to explain with words, to put to his tongue that his Yusuf has always had a way with those around him, an innate ability in reading people so effortlessly. A gift, Nicky would say, a man truly without intent to harm, that despite his proclamations about Nicky and his _kindness_ can wield the force of his convictions and purity into the gentle touch he bestows. It’s _hard_ to tell Nile that Joe was the first to hold Andromache in those months after they first put Quynh’s rescue to rest, the first to clutch her screaming body in his arms after they made the call.

He doesn’t know how, can only say, _it’s Joe_ , and hope that’s enough.

Nile, caught up in the boom of laughter as Joe slides under the water, Andy bouncing off of his shoulders, nods eventually, sees it with those clever eyes.

Then,

“I like your hugs as well.”

And he doesn’t realise he felt the tiniest catch in his throat, a small curlicue of smoking inadequacy, until Nile shuffles closer and tucks herself under his arm, warm and sticky and slick with lotion as well, because she’s incapable of asking another to do what she isn’t willing.

He’s become dreadfully fond of this girl with her wild laughter and quicksilver smile.

“How’re you coping?” Nile says while they’re in the middle of watching the pair streak through the water.

Nicky jolts a little, bought out of his thoughts. “Fine.”

“Just fine?”

“I’ve been getting a lot done, our accounts are up to date, and I’ve found a certain state of mind each dawn even whilst you catcall-”

Nile jabs his calf with her still damp foot. “Hey, that’s not just me.”

“You and Joe are as bad as each other.” Nicky allows.

“So, I guess that this experience has really allowed you to take the time to develop your inner chi.”

“Yes.”

There’s a long drawn out moment, and then Nile laughs hard enough that she starts hiccuping. “You’re so full of shit.”

Nicky groans loudly. “You haven’t any idea Nile.”

She seems to have enough sympathy in her to consolingly pat his arm, and they stay like that for a while, as the sun tracks overhead and at some point, he finds his book in his lap. Nile doesn’t leave his side, if anything her legs drape across his, head on his chest, and she’s stumbling over the words, eyes narrowing in concentration each time he corrects her. It’s not something he could have described wanting, that he might be entrusted with a small fragment of her education, this eagerness in the way Nile has approached everything so far, and if all he can provide is a few words of the distant relation of his mother’s tongue then he’ll consider himself blessed.

“Nicky.” Andy shouts out to him at one point, hair slicked back in the water.

“Yes, boss.”

“Get in.”

“I’d rather not.”

She doesn’t argue, which is too suspicious to ignore. “You might wish to move.” Nicky sighs and gets to his feet, tries to scrub some of this blasted sand off of his arms.

Nile looks at him curiously but then obligingly bounces up and to the side. “Why?”

He gave her good warning, as Joe appears from behind, as if Nicky doesn’t know all of his tricks by now. Unable to resist twisting at the last second so his husband hurtles forward and barely regains his equilibrium before turning for another shot.

This time Nicky accepts the arm slipping around his waist, hears Andy’s cheer and then settles for being dumped unceremoniously in the water.

“You’re an unscrupulous cur.” He duly informs his love once he’s rubbed the water from his eyes.

“Indeed.” Joe’s catches him by the hips, makes bookends out of his hands and anchors Nicky in place.

Andy swears and starts to swim further afield, gestures Nile to join her.

Nicky, who doesn’t mind the sea, enjoys the taste of it on Joe’s lips as he sucks the salt from them.

\---

It’s a novelty Andy had said.

He has patience Nicky had said.

Nicky is a fucking fool.

He makes the decision when, for the first time, he’s lying in bed alone, his husband downstairs muttering in a dozen dead languages around his coffee that he doesn’t even fucking like, and he’s staring at his own cock as if it’s the enemy.

His cock can be ignored, the empty stretch across the sheets next to him, cold and untouched for hours now is unforgivable.

So in the end, Nicky goes to Copley when he can no longer jest and tease without something akin to pain scraping his nerves raw each time he has to pull away.

“I’ll say to you what I said to Joe last week.” Copley looks up from the file he’s flicking through. “We’ve made progress, but we’re not close to reverse engineering a reliable antidote yet. The team have run a few trials but that’s as far as we’ve got.”

“Joe came here?” Nicky masks the surprise with a frown, tries to work out how his love has slipped away for a few days without him knowing and comes up blank.

“He called; I didn’t get the pleasure of his company.”

Strangely, when Copley says it Nicky is mostly certain that he genuinely means it. There’s a fascination that runs deep in Copley’s marrow for them, a sorrow for the unintentional effects of that intrigue, and maybe it’s because of this that Nicky has managed to find himself at peace with the man, more so than the others, Nile aside.

“I was in the area.” Which is probably the only excuse he’s had to make the diversion ninety miles north when he’d finished gathering the intel apparently needed to pursue a larger syndicate.

“I know. I was the one that sent Andy the request. Though I appreciate you delivering it directly.”

Nicky tries to get them back on track. “If you have a trial drug, then I can test it for you.”

“No.”

“Copley.” His voice drops in warning.

“Bring Joe in and let me inject him.”

Nicky’s stomach contracts. Blinks away the image of Joe restrained on a hospital gurney, needles scraping and forcing their way deep into his beautiful body. “What an absurd idea."

“Then don’t ask me to take the same risk with you if it wouldn’t be right to do it to him.”

Nicky deflates, hates it when somebody else speaks sensibly. “You just don’t want to take the risk of Andy finding out you gave me an untested drug.”

“Of course not, and worse still,” Copley says, “I don’t wish to find myself at the receiving end of Joe’s wrath if he found out I gave you something experimental.”

“Yeah,” Nicky sighs, “I can appreciate that.”

\---

It should be known that Andy, in general, cannot let a slight go.

But this does seem particularly cruel.

“I do not remember the last time you looked quite so ravishing, my love.” Joe calls out to him, head disappearing back around the bathroom door.

Nicky, who’s in a rather considerable amount of trouble after the longest cold shower he’s possibly taken in his life (which should say a lot given his proclivity for getting blood and shards of bone stuck in his hair on a regular basis), is not having a good time.

The hotel room they’ve paid for is merely there to create an illusion so that Matteo and Christopher, guests of one of the supposedly most affluent families in the states eldest’s wedding, don’t raise suspicions. Under usual circumstances it would be a rather heady affair, possible bloodshed and mayhem aside, the rare chance to adopt a persona that doesn’t require he be married to Andy, or more recently Nile, and instead can show Joe off in the manner he deserves.

This, however, is fucking unpleasant.

Nicky has figuratively, and literally, walked to the gallows many times in his life, and this feels like one of them as he squares up, rounds his shoulders back and marches out of the bathroom where he’s been delaying for the past thirty minutes.

Joe looks precisely how he feared.

“Would it have killed you, my heart, to have worn anything else tonight?” It’s been a good thirty years since he last saw Joe like this, and now he thinks it was for a good reason, because his love looks _sinful_.

The light of his life is dressed in a three-piece suit, charcoal grey jacket over his arm ready to put on over the black waistcoat he’s fixing, dress shirt white and hugging every perfect fucking curve of his shoulders and arms. He’s fiddling with the tie when Nicky walks out and all that he wants to do now is wrap it around his fist and pull Joe towards the king size bed, to stay there for at least the next hour, and there’s no denying it to himself when he’s this hard and the shower did no fucking difference. Like a frigid droplet running down the molten heat of his spine.

“I would have hated to be undesirable to you.” Joe smiles knowingly in the mirror at him.

“You know, as well as I, that the sun will burn out before that happens.” Nicky sighs, mourns the missed opportunity he could have had here.

“And you’re making it sound as if you’re alone in that sentiment.”

Nicky’s about to do something particularly stupid and ill-advised when faced with the teasing curl of Joe’s lips, which is pretty on brand for him where it comes to his love, when Nile bangs her fist half a dozen times before coming into their room with the spare card, hand over her eyes.

“You’d better be decent guys, I’m not in the mood to go blind here.”

Nicky almost rolls his eyes, then remembers their brief layover in Sydney and their last hotel experience and thinks _fair enough_.

Besides, he’s enamoured with the nervous fidget of her fingers as they crease in the folds of her dress, and by the time they arrive at the event he cannot help but spend his first hour there heading off all of the particularly unpleasant men that seem intent on ruining her night.

“Have I ever told you how much I love you Nicky?” She mutters as he waylays her under the pretence of enquiring after her ‘musical ventures’ and not to dissuade a man that looks like he should be role-playing as Father Time with the badly groomed beard he’s sporting from gliding far too close to her rear end than civility dictates.

“You should not have to, I apologise that you are not allowed to break his hand.”

She snorts, tries to cover it with a forced giggle and he almost cringes at the difference between this and her usual burst of laughter that rings across the room with such joy.

“The sooner Patton gets here the better.”

Nicky is in full agreement there. “I’m sure that he’ll be frustratingly late just to inconvenience us both.”

Nile eyes another man with a gaze that stares for far too long. “Do you think they’d find me nearly as attractive if I told them that all I can think about is this fucking thong riding up my ass?”

“A tragedy I’m sure.” Nicky grins and waits until the bastard moves on before he continues his slow sweep of the room.

Joe is to his left, a few feet away most of the time, doing what he’s always been best at. Impressing cold souls with the genuine shine of his personality, the sincerity in those pretty eyes of his, and Nicky isn’t being unkind. He more than counts himself in that category, only that he doubts the politician his love is debating with would be half as impressed if they knew the filth those lips could spill when the lights go out.

Which is not a thought to be having when surrounded by a few hundred people, a dozen of which are supposedly running an extremely profitable organ trafficking business.

_So fucking concentrate you amorous fool._

The event is about as cheap and tacky masquerading as pretentious as he’d suspected it would be, as much as one can only expect when the invitations came through on vellum cards that had a tagline at the bottom that genuinely stated _sponsored by_ the family business.

The usual guests are there, it’s the same at every high end event they’ve ever partaken in, politicians, the governor being the brides cousin, high standing members of a small, conservative town that’s kidding itself into thinking that it’ll still be significant in another eighty years. The one thing that does surprise him is watching two women wrapped around one another, gently moving to the string quartet. It isn’t often he witnesses that sort of open adoration surrounded by smiling faces, can now understand why Andy had told him that he and Joe could come as one tonight and he marginally revises his opinion of those around him.

Though considering what they are here for, he’s probably going to have to accept that even criminals can have minor redeeming characteristics.

It doesn’t help that he has that itch between his shoulders that he usually gets when someone’s got a bead on him, the seconds preceding a bullet slamming into his back. Partially the mood also isn't helped that he’s had the same chirpy accountant step into his path no less than on three separate occasions now and Nicky’s never been the vocal one, not in the slightest, and so he’s running out of ways to decline the man without violence occurring.

Just in case he’s marked all six escape routes out of the place, because, well, he might end up throwing the irritating little man into the five tier wedding cake if he doesn’t stop offering to do Nicky’s fucking tax returns.

“It isn’t too early to think about getting ahead of the game.”

Really, he should have played the language card, foolish not to, and Nicky berates himself for not ending this nonsense before it could begin with a string of Italian curses. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

“We could discuss it over a drink if you’d like?”

Before he can think of risking exposure by slamming a fork into his eye in preference to such a thing, there’s a familiar presence at his shoulder and Nicky almost sags in relief.

“My apologies for interrupting, but it’s our song, my heart.”

It’s nothing of the fucking sort, and yet Nicky cannot resist smiling as he turns and takes Joe’s hand, bids his admirer adieu and lets himself be guided towards the centre of all the revelry.

“Do we have a song?” He ponders as Joe tugs him close enough he can slide an arm around Nicky’s waist.

“Do you not like this one?”

“No. It’s… common.” He says for lack of a better descriptor.

“Only you could consider Johann Strauss common.” Joe chides, seems as usual, unfazed by Nicky’s lack of appreciation for that which he finds fascinating. “In all of your life Nicolo I would think that you might have learnt more than a perfunctory knowledge of the arts.”

Nicky would argue his case, but he prefers to allow himself to be guided by warm hands and a sure body. “You haven’t rubbed off on me enough, my love.”

“I haven’t rubbed off on you at all more recently.”

“That was tawdry and lazy, especially for you.”

“How have you put up with me for all of these years?”

_Easily. With all of the luck in the world and a prayer that it never ends._

He may have said it, may have not, Joe knows it, knows his inability to fashion his words into soft declarations and that’s all that matter.

He dances with his husband in a room full of sharks with too white teeth and he should be watching out for their mark, should be keeping an eye on the string of suspects Andy listed, and yet he’s entirely consumed, as he's always been, by Joe.

They dance until Joe’s hand on his waist is hard to ignore, the firm pressure burning through the layers of Nicky’s suit until he’s certain he can feel the individual line of each finger. It makes him twitch, has him pushing into Joe until it goes beyond looking appropriate and its simply Joe’s head resting against his, Joe’s hand bought up to his chest. It’s tender enough, intimate and so very lovely that Nicky is content to trade off this strange precipice of too much friction where it’s not wanted in exchange for remaining in the arms of his beloved this way for the rest of his admittedly long life.

Then, subtly, quietly, lost to any looking in the thrum and bustle of the hundreds of voices around them, Joe tilts his head a little, voice thready and low, “I will love you until the end of time, Nicolo.”

That’s all it takes for him to flush, skin too tight over his bones, everything narrowed into an acute awareness of this blasted man and Nicky is, for the first time, a little afraid that he might die, might surrender to it if only that he has some tangible way to show his husband the dizzying breadth of his love.

It leaves him reckless, he thinks later that night, when he spots Patton entering the ballroom, follows him out of the fire escape, tracks after him without stopping to check if Joe or Nile are following, though he’s sure they are.

Joe has always known where to find him.

“You were feral tonight.” Joe uses the pocket square from his suit to take the worst of the blood from Nicky’s hands and tuts when it has little effect.

_Who’s fault is that?_

He almost asks it. Doesn’t. Knows this is on him, can see Nile on a phone talking to Copley’s clean up crew and he can’t bring himself to feel guilty over the mess they’re going to walk into.

“He put a gun to your head.”

“And that was enough to forfeit his life?”

Nicky doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He can take a bullet. He can take ten. Fifty. He will take all of the bullets if it spares Joe a single one, and he may have been _feral,_ but he will never be able to stand idly while such a crime happens.

Joe reads the answer in the clench of Nicky's fingers on his jacket, smiles and gently pushes his hair out of his eyes. “Perfectly understandable.”

\---

Nicky’s in the middle of bartering with the antiquated coffee maker, who’s presence he’s tolerating by a thin thread because the thing can either spit out the closest thing to ambrosia in caffeine form he’s ever tasted, or toxic sludge, and there seems to be no defining line to distinguish the difference.

His current attempt is to gently stroke its side and whisper sweet endearments to it and from the smell effusing the air he might be on the right track.

In a few hours he’s supposedly meant to be taking Nile snorkelling, an activity he hasn’t much partaken in himself. But it’s on this list Nile has composed, things that she feels would be a tragedy to miss and so he’s willing to join her, if only that they’ve fucked up with one of theirs already, neglected to notice the loneliness creeping in like a rotting damp, and he’s determined that it shan’t happen again.

“If you wish to have a drink, then you’ll have to wait until I’ve finished serenading mine.” He calls out in lieu of a greeting when he hears Andy stride into the room.

“Ten minutes.” She says in the same voice she adopts in battle, cold, hard, clipped at the end of each word as if she expects nothing less than total obedience.

“Huh.” He glances over his shoulder and feels his entire body _burn_ as she throws a wad of money, held tight in a clip, onto the counter. “Is that…”

Andy leans past him to grab the last two bottles of rum in the house and drains half of one in a single draw before she reaches behind her to dump a cooler bag in front of him.

“Copley gave his best.”

Nicky tunes her out as he carefully opens it, because he’s not going to trip himself at the finish line by breaking something in his impatience, not when there’s a kernel of hope in his chest that explodes when he scans the letter inside and picks up two small vials.

“Huh.” He says again, intelligently.

Nicky looks at the vials, rolls them between his fingers to inspect the clear liquid inside, and then grins.

“Give me ten minutes to grab the kid.” She warns him.

“You have five.” He lies, and turns on his heel and takes off like a homing missile to find the light of his life.

Which isn’t as impressive as it could be considering Joe is precisely where he left him, most likely in the same frustrated state that had Nicky storming into the kitchen a half hour ago.

“Nicky?” Joe calls out to him, reading his position in the room as he enters by the same unnatural force that Nicky has with him, and he’s walking out, sweatpants low on his hips, Henley tight over the swell of his biceps, and he looks… and he’s close enough to touch… and Nicky _can_ fucking touch him now.

He can’t help it, he _touches_ , stalks forward with _intent_ , catches Joe unsuspecting and unprepared, clutches a handful of that offensively attractive shirt and has him against the wall quick enough he catches Joe’s gasp with his lips. Their foreheads bump together, and Nicky’s distantly aware of it, couldn’t give a shit when all he can smell is _Joe_ like an aphrodisiac comprised of his hair, his sweat, the fluoride of his toothpaste. It’s a rapid-fire series of thoughts and emotions and memories playing over like an old film-reel and something seizes in his chest as Joe clings to his arms, where he grips hard enough to visibly bruise for a few seconds.

"Nicolo, what is that?" Joe pulls away, can feel the hand Nicky's slipped between them, eyes darkening with the same mixture of hope and arousal as he takes the vial passed to him.

“Drink this.” Nicky leans back, unscrews his own and he’s barely cataloguing the viscous fluid he knocks back before he’s chasing after the taste of it on Joe’s tongue.

 _This_ is what he needs, as if every wall boxing him in over the last few months has come crashing down in one violent instant, and he’s hurtling over them towards this moment of completion at maximum velocity. There’s no other way to describe the hasty, desperate manner in which he’s tugging Joe across the room, insatiable in how he can’t stop kissing him, pulling him in impossibly closer. There’s isn't a single atom in his body that's not vibrating in need, and it feels _good_ in a way he hasn’t been permitted for too long.

There’s an intensity in his body’s reactions that borders on overwhelming.

They’ve always had patience between them, enough to stay the hands of war many a time, and Nicky knows that Joe, his passionate, tender husband can utilise this patience to string him up for days until he’s sweat-slick and sobbing, has done so on more than one occasion, and knowing all of this doesn’t change the fact that he’s pushed back, hard enough his calves would ache if it were possible as he hits the bed frame.

Joe catches his whine as he takes them both down onto the sheets, fingers already chasing over his ribs, sliding his shirt up and off. Something unfurls in Nicky’s gut, something white-hot and possessive and fanged, and he’s got a hand clasped in Joe’s hair, and he can’t recall more than a handful of times he’s been this desperate, this ready, this unbelievably hard since that first time so very long ago.

It might have something to do with the way Joe is gripping him hard enough he could leave bruises, groaning as Nicky’s fingers move to dig into the meat of his shoulders and still looking at him as if he’s hung the moon.

Nicky, who’s sense of control will never be in the same vein as his lovers, can only blink and try to convey the same depth of affection as he tips Joe over onto his back to make his way down and lave his tongue over the sharp jut of his hipbone like he’s been wanting to do for too fucking long.

“Nicolo,” Joe breathes, voice strained, and Nicky pauses in his pursuit of tugging the cotton of his sweatpants down, toys with the hem.

“Yes, my love?”

"Just, _please_..."

If there were one thing that Nicky thinks that nobody would believe him, would snort in derision if he insisted, is that in these moments, the beautiful poetry, the verses his love was born to create, seem to flee from his grasp. Incapable of worded response outside of groaning out sweet terms of adoration, and Nicky decides that neither of them have the restraint to tease as he frees Joe’s cock from his sweatpants and starts stroking idly.

“My heart, you’re too much.” Joe watches him eyes wide, and Nicky’s very conscious of the fingers sifting through his hair, relishes the accidental clench as he deliberately takes him down to the back of his throat with a practised ease.

No one has ever given out so much easy affection and in return has ever deserved it as much as his Yusuf, and Nicky can’t help but moan around the weight of him on his tongue, feel the urgent way Joe’s hips shift under his hands. Restless, as if he’s incapable of moving, cannot escape and Nicky can only love him with his whole heart when Joe finally loses patience and drags him up and away, tips Nicky to the side so he can reach for the drawer beside them.

And he's swearing, fumbling for the bottle of lube and Nicky props himself up on his elbows as this peaceful, erudite lover of his, his _husband_ , is so very impatient and it’s magnificent to watch him curse, slip between dialects freely when he finally gets the bottle open with a click that has Nicky shivering.

Then it’s his turn to swear as Joe treats his body with the same reverence that’s never waned in all of these years, settling between his thighs and pressing two slick fingers into him without pause, in tune with Nicky’s thundering heart, knows him intimately, knows that he needs to feel the slightest burn, the stretch, hasn’t the patience to take it slow when most of the blood rushes from his head.

They’ve had many mornings like this, where he’s knelt in Joe’s lap, ridden out the swell of his desire around the sharp, intense, grounding sensation of his husband’s long fingers until he’s dewy with perspiration, hair stuck to his forehead.

Now is truly not the time for that.

When Joe finally relents it’s as Nicky’s voice becomes edged with fire as he pleads and whimpers and uses every second of nine-hundred-years, of almost eight-fucking-weeks of control to still the rising wave, and it’s not a second too soon. He settles over Nicky, catches one of his thighs and gentles it up high on his waist, when he pushes into him with his teeth sinking deep in the column of his neck, holding Nicky’s arching spine in the palms of his hands so lovingly.

There’s no sense of urgency as Joe noses over his throat, rolls his hips, grinding into him with slow, rhythmic strokes and Nicky’s gasping out broken, needy sounds with every thrust and it’s enough, so soon, too fast after too long, that he’s grasping Joe’s face, pulling their heads together so he can anchor himself in those pretty, pretty eyes.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers in the most the purest form of confession he has, “my love.”

Joe groans, low and sweet for him, and Nicky’s leaking between their stomachs, and pressure mounts, builds at the base of his back, embarrassingly fast if they had a space for such emotions. Perhaps that’s to be expected, stakes and emotions running high, multiplying sensations he hasn’t been able to feel and not for lack of motivation.

In any other circumstance they’d take their time, but in the here and now all it takes is Joe’s hand curling around his cock, the friction of his callused fingers and Nicky is gone. Lost in the jack-rabbit pace of his heart as he spills, body clenching down hard, heels digging into Joe’s back as his lover comes undone with a breaking cry of his name, his hips lurching in tiny desperate thrusts.

Nicky pulls him into a sloppy kiss, runs shaking fingers over Joe’s beard, feels everything settle at last in his chest, the two of them falling into sync after being hobbled for too long and he carefully eases his beloved down until he’s at his side. He’s never exaggerated Joe’s tactile nature, the need he has to hold Nicky close until his breathing shifts away from raw and rough, and Nicky would be lying if he didn’t draw comfort from the solid weight of Joe’s warmth while he’s light headed and wonderfully fucked-out.

He knows it’s working when Joe starts to find his tongue once more, peppers kisses across the crown of his head. “That was not as impressive as I’d hoped to be.”

“You’re lucky that I know you well enough not to be easily offended.” Nicky sniffs.

“You were sin incarnate, Nicolo, and I am unworthy to feel your touch.” Joe tips his chin up to brush his lips over his brow, the line of his cheekbones, everywhere except Nicky’s own, which feels rather unfair. “I, however, feel like a stripling.”

“That, my love, you are most certainly not.” Nicky huffs out a laugh and tucks his face into the juncture of Joe’s neck where he can inhale the rich scent of him, can listen with bated breath to the reliable thump of his pulse, a sound that he’s long since memorised the cadence of. “I’m sure you’ll have a chance to prove yourself again shortly.”

\---

By the time the sun rises and sets, and the stars are particularly bright in the sky, Nicky is feeling remarkably invigorated. Possibly a little smug as well.

“I don’t believe Andy will be happy with you, my heart.” Joe says, frowning at the busted kitchen tap.

Nicky considers it absently around a piece of mango, savours the sweet juice on his tongue and thinks that he really hadn’t been grasping the thing that hard so surely it's a sign of poor workmanship more than any real fault of his.

He tells Joe this…

And winces guiltily as he hears the crash of a shelf coming down from another room.

Joe raises a brow.

“Oh shush,” he scolds, “we’ll end up purchasing the place from her anyway.”

At the sound of wood creaking ominously from the dining room, Joe sighs. “I dread to think of the mark up.”

“I don’t know.” Nicky pushes off of the counter in favour of coming up and stretching over the curve of Joe’s spine, hooks his chin over his shoulder and decides for what may be the millionth time to try and bite a mark into the smooth skin below his ear. “This place is a bit of a wreck.”

Joe’s laughter as he twists and grips his waist to pull him in for a kiss is what Nicky has always believed that dreams taste like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was watching Mr & Mrs Smith with a friend and we both came to the same conclusion that Joe and Nicky could do the same damage to a house without the fighting and I had to add the last little bit onto here because of it.


End file.
